The 13 hour drive from Michigan to Georgia was one more time quite tiring. I set to go early to bed and rest as much as possible in order to be ready the next morning. In the middle of the night, the down pour woke me up. It was quite a sight as the parking lot of the hotel was transformed into a swimming pool. I returned to my bed and turned on the alarm twenty minutes earlier such I could change tires to ready the bike for the mud.
Surprisingly, the start finish area was not in such a bad shape considering the amount of rain we had the night before. The grassy field was "spongy" and water would come out as you walked on the grass but there was no monster water puddle and the grass field was not transformed into a swamp area. The race promoter gave us the usual advices and started the count down for the 2 laps of 50 miles.
The lap starts by a long and steady dirt road climb; I don't know what stung Jeff Schalk but he set up an incredible tempo right from the beginning. For a moment, I thought that he just wanted to get his legs and heart in gear but after a minute of this high speed pace, there was no slow down. One by one, I watched Jeff's followers losing ground as I was reaching from the back. When I finally made the lead group, Jeff was about 50 yards ahead by himself.
Nobody in the group wanted to stay at that speed since there was still 98 miles to go. Maybe Jeff wanted to set up the longest run away of any 100 mile race? Anyway, I had good legs too and decided to bridge back. Knowing the course from the year prior, I knew I had plenty of time to reach back. I did it very gradually and in a very controlled manner without having to red line the legs or the heart. Jeff and I were now 20 minutes into the race when the first rain drops started to fall around us. 30 seconds later, it was a strong rain.
The Cohutta and Mohican races came back to memory. Will the weather at this year Fool's Gold race be worse? At least, it was a good start as the sky let see no indication that the rain would stop anytime soon.
The steep and long downhill from aid station #1 got me to blink every 5 seconds; the road was just a blurry brownish stripe in front of me. The trail at the bottom was a running creek and I could hear the discs already chewing apart the brake pads. By now, Jeff set up in a much more comfortable pace but yet I got sometimes distanced because I could not distinguish the trail anymore from all the dirt on my glasses.
As we arrived at aid station#2 (also aid station #3), I could have used a short stop to grab a fresh bottle but nothing was set up yet: no tent, no bags, no volunteers. Jeff was a little disoriented as arrows were pointing in several directions. Since I raced there last year and knowing that the loop between aid #2 and aid #3 was run in the opposite direction, I quickly guided us to the proper path.
As we entered a steeper single track, my chain became to get jammed between the chain rings and the chain stay. The first few times, I bridged back to Jeff but the chain suck became worse causing me to chase for longer durations. However, it is in the downhill that I let Jeff go alone. Once more, my vision was impeded by the dirt on the glasses. So far, I have been cleaning quite successfully my glasses while riding but the increased speeds in the downhill caused an increased amount of dirt on the glasses.... in addition, my rear break gave its last hurray in the downhill to aid #3.
I finally reached the aid station and this time it was ready. I grabbed my bottles and took that opportunity to clean my glasses once more. What a difference clean glasses make! Literally day and night!
The chain sucks became more and more frequent and where it used to happen only on the small ring while riding uphill sections, it was now occurring on the large chain ring on flats... Anyway I was still moving forward, at least for the moment.
By now, I started to notice a lot of riders ahead of me. In fact, the weather conditions took its toll on men and machines and many racers were not able to continue racing and were on their way to return to the start finish. On a flat dirt road I met one of them. He jumped out of his bike to help me with yet another chain suck. We rapidly got the chain untangled but it required a tremendous effort to spin the cranks such that we thought the chain was still stuck somewhere. We double checked everything: the chain line was fine and diagnosed the problem. The free wheel was locked. After a few power pedal strokes out of the saddle, the free wheel started to spin somewhat freely...
Before aid station #4, Harlan Price bridged back; he was doing extremely well in the uphill sections and rode several trails on his single speed that I ended-up pushing due to bike problem.
Chain sucks and reduced visibility were my excuses to let Harlan go. Finally, I reached a steep downhill. I remembered this trail to be tricky and made sure I did not entered it with speed as it would be even harder to slow down with my fading front brake. Unfortunately, Harlan did not have the same knowledge of the trail and crashed at speed. His bike was upside down in a tree and the content of his jersey's back pockets scattered all over the trail. As soon as I could see him I crushed the brake lever. Where normally I would have been catapulted over the bar, the bike was gently slowing down; I think this was the last time my front brake somewhat worked.
Harlan was on his feet which was a good thing. After awhile, Harlan sent me on my way, confirming that he was bruised but okay.
The rest of the course was just a blurry mess. Both brakes now completely out, I was really cautious in the downhill trails. In one of the uphill forest road, I saw glimpse of Jeff before he finally disappeared for good in the following downhill. Few times, while reaching approx. 12 miles an hour, I would dismount the bike and start running to reduce my speed. It was really scary at times.
I was relieved when Eddie (race promoter) stopped the race at one lap. I had replacement brake pads in my car and could have changed them for the second lap... or maybe not... Now back home, after cleaning the bike, I noticed that the brake pad was completely gone, not just the brake compound but also the supporting plate. The piston was able to move so far out, that the hydraulic oil was gone. Looking back, changing the brake pads will have been no use.
Anyway, it was an interesting race for sure; worth remembering.
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